John Kormendy: Kenya 2026
This web site contains the pictures from my 2026 August birding trip to Kenya with Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT).
A preliminary check of my records suggests that I got 138 new bird species. I hoped for 150-200, but birding was surprisingly slow. For example, we saw few seedeaters such as waxbills. We missed several birds that are normally associated with this tour, e. g., Golden pipit. My guess is that this was partly due to drought: in fact, we had only one afternoon during the tour when birding was prevented (at least for me) by rain. Similarly during my most recent trip -- to Borneo -- no birding time was lost to rain. Meanwhile, we appeared to have unusually good luck with mammals. From close up, we saw a lioness kill a Wildebeest; she even dragged the carcass into the shade of our safari vehicle on the way to taking in to more sheltered bushes. We saw a (vanishingly rare) Caracal and a Serval with playful kittens. We repeatedly saw lions up close, plus cheetahs and leopards. And of course, herds of antelope, elephants, even close to our camp, graceful giraffes, and the small scavengers that prey on them -- hyenas, jackals, and vultures -- were as rich as expected. The magic of East Africa and especially of the Masai Mara was endlessly impressive and deeply appreciated by us all.
This web site is under construction. This web site is finished
now through the end of August 8th, our day at Nairobi National Park. The hiatus is over
and I will work steadily through the pictures for the coming 2 months at least. The first
iteration will concentrate on my life birds and on enough scenery and mammal pictures so that
(I hope) I don't forget what happened. This iteraton is finished half way through August 11th,
our second day at Masai Mara Reserve. A second iteration on all other pictures will
follow but will take a long time.
Calendar
Itinerary and Bird Richness
This is VENT's map of our itinerary, annotated by me. Red filled circles mark overnight stops.
This world map encodes the number of bird species per unit area as published here. The resolution of the original image is 10 x 10 km. Taxonomy is vintage 2018 and maps represent native, extant species only. It is clear why birding is so productive in South America along the Andes mountains and in the Amazon basin, in south-east Asia, where we have birded the foothills of the Himalayas in India and China, and in two crescents that surround Lake Victoria in Africa. This is my first trip to the wonderfully rich area of Kenya just to the east of Lake Victoria.
Trip Birds
Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse (I always love to see sandgrouse, but see the August 11 description for more detail.)
If the concept of "royalty" means anything in the bird world, turacos score high. My second and third trip birds are the two turacos that we saw during the trip.
Schalow's turaco in our tent camp in the Mara
Hartlaub's turaco flyby at the Ark in Aberdare National Park
Travelog and Bird Pictures
I arrived 3 days before the start of the VENT tour to give me time to rest before the birding schedule got hard. This gave me time to bird the grounds of the Hotel Ole Sereni, which was promising to get a few new birds before seeing new birds got rushed.
August 5 - 7: Pre-tour Birding at Nairobi Emara Hotel Ole Sereni
Marabou storks often soared by my hotel room window.
From my window, I looked out on the dry scrub plains of Nairobi National Park. The most common sight was these two zebras, which foraged here quietly every day that I stayed at the hotel.
Baglafecht weaver was -- appropriately enough -- my first life bird of the trip. This is a male. The birds were foraging in fruiting bushes all around the 3rd-floor balcony of the breakfast area of the Ole Sereni Hotel.
Abyssinian thrush, also from the breakfast balcony. This bird is a bit unkempt ... but it is my life bird.
Cape robin-chat (juvenile) It was not new -- I'd seen it in South Africa.
Streaky seedeater in overgrown gully at edge of Nairobi National Park, across the street from the hotel and still seen from the breakfast balcony. Note the strong dark eye and gular stripes, the strong white stripe above the eye, and the generally stripy look. This is my life bird.
Common bulbul
Variable sunbird (immature male)
Augur buzzard, out in Nairobi National Park about as far away as the zebras, above. This is my life bird, the last of 4 new birds on August 5 + 6.
African palm swifts often flew around the hotel and as far into Nairobi National Park as I could see. It is not often that I get even a so-so picture.
I continued to bird on my own on August 7th. Happily, I discoveried early that the part of the Hotel Ole Sereni in which I was staying was only half of the property. An older part of the hotel is located on the other side of our entry way, and the birding there was better than the birding in the new part of the hotel. I could get closer to greenery and flowers. And there was a swimming pool that acted as a magnet to attract birds. So I got 3 more life birds today from closer up than were yesterday's birds.
This juvenile Reichenau's seedeater confidently identified later by our local guide, Chege wa Kariuki III. What is not obvious here is the spectacularly yellow rump, seen much better in adults a few minutes later. This is my life bird.
A little later, an adult Reichenau's seedeater put on for me a definitive display of his yellow rump. As did several other birds who did not come as close.
Streaky seedeater -- much better than yesterday's view
Abyssinian thrush, also much better than yesterday's view
Hamerkop atop the fence around Nairobi National Park, across the street from our hotel
Variable sunbird -- busy in the flower birds especially around the old part of the hotel
Amethyst sunbird (Thanks to Andrew Whittaker for confirming the ID.)
Speckled mousebird (This is my life bird.)
Superb starling frequent the hotel grounds, according to the trip itinerary. Until late morning on August 7th, I had not seen them. But by the time of the most recent several sightings and pictures, above, I had wandered along the hotel grounds to the swimming pool at its east end. Suddenly, a noisy flock of half-a-dozen Superb starlings arrived. Spectacular, as advertised. They are my life birds.
Ring-necked dove
African pied wagtail
Baglafecht weaver (female)
White-browed sparrow-weaver (Beautiful bird, not new: I'd seen it in South Africa)
Red-throated crag martins zoomed by, each touching down in the swimming pool for a split-second. This bird is flying up and away; you can see two rings of waves where his wings touched water during the swoop in to snatch a drink. Many thanks to Chege for identifying this bird.
Reichenau's seedeater and other birds came in to drink, often in the shallows: water is a reliable bird magnet in this dry climate.
Even Common bulbul showed up to check on the fuss around the pool.
African pied wagtail again -- classy bird
Wire-tailed swallow also came, attracted by the pool.
I got 7 new birds in the three days before the VENT tour started. Moreover, there was time to try to get good pictures. Once the tour started, sightings got hectic and brief, so -- except for some cooperative ground birds -- pictures starting tomorrow tend to be less good.
August 8: Nairobi National Park
The VENT tour started with an all-day safari drive in Nairobi National Park.
Helmeted guineafowl (These two birds are unusually drab.)
Long-tailed fiscal (This is my life bird -- brief view; bad angle.)
Northern pied-babbler (This is my life bird.)
Sentinel lark (This is my life bird. I never got a great look, but the generally rufous look especially in the wings, is reasonably clear.)
Yellow-necked spurfowl (This is my life bird.)
Shelley's francolin is at right, supremely well camouflaged. At left is the title page picture posted at ebird. It's clear that we saw it -- this is my life bird -- even though our view was far from satisfying.
Kenya rufous sparrow (This female is my life bird.)
Kenya rufous sparrow (This is a juvenile.)
Yellow-throated longclaw (I had seen this species in South Africa.)
Hadada ibis
Common ostrich male in breeding plumage
Stout cisticola (This bird was "called" by our guides based partly on morphology but mostly on its song. That's the reliable way to ID cisticolas. But when I first saw this picture -- back in Austin -- I was not entirely convinced; e. g., sometimes guides correctly call one bird among many, but I accidentally point the camera at the wrong bird. Here, the beak does not look right -- too thin compared to the more robust bill of Stout cisticola. The coloration is correct, but the bird is fluffing up its back feathers in a way that I don't see in published pictures. So I decided to take this formally as a "check", not a life bird -- i. e., "I am almost sure that it is correct, but I don't see ID features well enough to take this as a life bird." Luckily, we saw more Stout cisticolas than any other cisticola species, often by the dozens. Later in the trip, I got several more secure sightings and pictures. So I take the bird that I saw on August 11th as my life bird. And I got confirmation pictures on other days, too. In the end, Stout cisticola turns out to be the most reliably seen, identified, and photographed cisticola of the trip.)
Wattled starling (Immature: The yellow spot behind the eye gives the barest hint of the spectacular yellow wattle that this bird gets in breeding plumage.)
White rhino and wattled starlings
White rhinoceros (The first time I went to South Africa, in 2004, I remarked in this web page: "The first time I traveled south of the equator - it was for an astronomical observing run in Chile in the early 1980s - nothing so strongly drove home the fact that I was in the southern hemisphere as seeing the constellation Orion upside-down. During the present trip, nothing so strongly drove home the fact that we were in Africa as seeing White rhinocerous." I still feel that way. Rhinos are, to me, the most impressive "living fossils" of past times of megafauna -- dinosaurs first and mammals more recently. Fortunately, Kenya takes care of its (southern) white rhinos: Wikipedia estimates that there are ~ 100 in Nairobi National Park, out of more than 800 in the country and more than 15,000 world-wide. This of course requires active policing against rhino horn poaching.
Rhino at rest evoke an unexpected, curiously dainty and fragile feel ...
Rhinos and Western cattle egrets in a wider, iphone perspective
Red-billed teal (These are my life birds.)
Three-banded plover
Wood sandpiper
Yellow-billed storks congregated around ponds.
It looks incongruous -- although it should be no surprise -- to see storks resting this way on their "knees".
We don't often get this close and personal with Yellow-billed -- or, indeed, any -- stork.
Spur-winged lapwing (Also in Israel.)
Blacksmith lapwing (Also in South Africa.)
Water thick-knee (Also in South Africa.)
Gray heron
Yellow-billed subspecies of Black kite (Juvenile) (Milvus migrans parasitus)
African red-rumped swallow (These are my life birds.)
Little bee-eater
Red-cheeked cordonbleu (Beautiful bird; unlucky angle. In a hurried group tour, you generally don't get a second chance.)
Rattling cisticola (Not new -- I've seen it in South Africa)
Rattling cisticola (juvenile) (Thanks to Andrew Whittaker for confirmation.)
Masai giraffe (Giraffa tippelskirchi) is a different species from southern giraffe (Giraffa giraffa) which we saw in South Africa. Later in the trip, we also saw Reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata), the biggest and -- to me -- the most regal of the 4 giraffe species. As far as I know, I have not seen Northern giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis).
Male impala is to me, the epitomy of grace among antelopes. I concentrated on birds during this trip, but we also focused on the spectacular array of other animals of East Africa ... especially on lions, leopards, and cheetahs.
Striped kingfisher
Long-crested eagle (This is my life bird.)
Skate-colored boubou (This is my life bird.)
Nubian woodpecker (This is my life bird.)
Black cuckooshrike (We also saw a female, which looks completely different -- heavily barred in green and with lots of yellow -- but I never got a good picture.)
Crimson-rumped waxbill (This is my life bird -- again, not from an ideal point of view.)
Black-faced waxbill (This species was not new, but I think that we here saw the East African subspecies, which is less colorful than the nominate South African species. Moreover, this looks like a female with all-gray belly. We did also see a male -- pale red underneath -- but I never got a good picture.)
Mountain gray woodpecker (This female is my life bird.)
African gray flycatcher (This was a very bad look ... but it is my life bird.)
Blue-naped mousebird (These are my life birds -- far away but unmistakeable.
Northern pied-babbler again
Rattling cisticola again (Like the previous bird, this is a stripe-backed subspecies, presumably Cisticola chiniana ukamba. I assume that the primary ID as Rattling was made more via the birds call than by the bird's morphology.)
Fischer's lovebird (This is my life bird ... which never came close.)
White-bellied bustard (This is my life bird. It was very territorial and seriously perturbed by our presence, as shown by this movie. We left quickly after this so as to not further disturb the bird.)
Northern Red-fronted tinkerbird (This is my 19th and last life bird of the day. Today was my most productive day since our boat ride on the Fly River in Papua New Guinea in July 2022.)
Eland
Speckled pigeon in the roof lounge and (it turns out) swimming pool area on the roof of our part of the Hotel Ole Sereni
August 9: Nairobi to Lake Nakuru
This morning we left early for the long drive to Lake Nakuru, birding along the way. A lunch stop at Manguo ("Place of Happiness") is not documented with pictures here -- that was essentially an elegant work of art consisting of local foods. After we checked into Sarova Lodge, we had lunch. Then birding in the afternoon was clobbered by rain.
Nyanza swift (This is my life bird. Diagnostic features include the short fork in the tail, the brown color, and especially the paler trailing side of the wings. Unfortunately, the bird did not come close ... or else I just failed to get a picture when it zoomed by more closely.)
Gray-backed fiscal (This is my life bird.)
Golden-winged sunbird (This is my life bird.)
Northern anteater-chat (This is my life bird. You can see a hint of the white patches in the wings.)
White-fronted bee-eater
White-fronted bee-eater sitting on the sign of the Sarova Lion Hill Lodge at Lake Nakuru
Lesser swamp warbler (Acrocephalus gracilirostris -- always happy to get a warbler)
Long-toed lapwing (This is my life bird.)
Red-billed oxpecker and impala
Caracal (Spectacular good luck to see this enormously shy and reclusive cat!)
Lake Nakuru typical view. The pelicans are Great White. The water level has risen alarmingly in recent years as a result of (1) increased rainfall as a consequence of climate change; (2) Indian Ocean moisture shifts toward the African Rift Valley, also a consequence of climate change, and (3) deforestation as a result of urban growth, with the result that more water runs into this closed basin instead of soaking into the soil. The situation is even worse at Lake Baringo (see August 16 and 17). Here at Lake Nakuru, birding is somewhat inconvenienced but not yet too bad. But the lodges at both lakes are threatened. The change is enormous and is illustrated further tomorrow.
Speckled mousebird at feeders near the lodge's restaurant ... fortunately, well above lake level. After lunch and a rest during the hottest part of the day, rain clobbered afternoon birding. This was the only time during the trip that rain directly affected our schedule.
August 10: Masai Mara National Reserve
Almost-180-degree panoramas of typical views of Lake Nakuru. The shore is outlined in drowned forests. Great white pelicans congregate in large numbers. In the morning, we drove part way around the lake, birding. Sites that were better in the past were somewhat affected, but birding here was still good.
Lesser flamingo
Lilac-breasted roller
Black-lored babbler (This is my life bird.)
Some little time after this, we started the long drive to Masai Mara Reserve. The picture of Double-banded courser was taken 6.5 hours after the above picture of the babbler. Once we got into the Mara, we still had a substantial drive to get to our tent camp (see tomorrow's pictures); we birded extensively all the way.
Double-banded courser (This is my life bird.)
Secretary bird -- poor picture of an important bird ... which we never saw better than here
Black-winged lapwing (This is my life bird.)
Once into Masai Mara Reserve, we started to see herds of mammals, especially zebra and wildebeest, antelope, giraffe, the occasional jackal or hyena or warthog, and -- here -- elephant. The richness of life in the Mara stokes our feelings that there are still wonderful places on this planet.
At the same time, "feeding frenzies" of safari vehicles crowding to see animals were surely the least charming aspect of touring the Mara. This is unavoidable; it happens in all such places that I have visited (e. g. in India, for tiger). The vehicles are useful in telling us from far away where interesting animals are trying to live their normal lives. Usually these are big cats. The crowding is obnoxious, and the behavior of aggressive drivers often "crosses the line" of civilized behavior. Sometimes by a lot! Still, a consequence is that the big cats have learned to ignore safari vehicles. It is shockingly how much people -- even very exposed people -- just don't exist as potential food in cats' eyes. But ... if you get out of your vehicle, you instantly turn into food. So rules are very strict, and people are not allowed out of vehicles except in very special circumstances where guides are able to check that nobody dangerous is near. All this means that, e. g., toilet stops have to be carefully managed and planned. Our guides were very sensitive to this problem and always handled it well. In this web site, I will avoid mentioning or illustrating crushes of safari vehicles. If you see pictures of interesting cats, you can assume that we were in a "pinball machine" of safari vehicles, trying to find good viewing spots without getting hit and without hitting anybody. Our driver-guide Chege was excellent at this while never sacrificing civilized behavior.
Late in the day as we approached our tent camp, we saw this resting cheetah -- my first ... and as it turned out, my best view.
More spectacular good luck: We saw -- briefly and not well -- a Serval cat and kittens. Tomorrow, our first stop would be to come back to get better looks!
Already in deep twilight, we came upon a male lion -- one of a trio that dominate the region -- in relaxed enjoyment of a wildebeest kill (see this movie).
Soon after this, we got to our camp and moved into our tents. Most people had supper in the dining tent, but I went to bed ASAP after a long but good day.
August 11: Masai Mara National Reserve
Out of sequence (this was taken around noon on August 12th), this was my tent in the Masai Mara camp.
More-than-180-degree panorama of the inside of my tent. Like everything at camp, it was exceedingly well outfitted. Here, the screen walls are open for daytime air circulation. The tangle of wires at left provides electrical power 24 hours per day, arranged especially for me (thank you very much!) because I needed to operate heating pads at night to keep me warm enough. Electrical power also allowed me to charge camera batteries: In a typical day of this trip, I used up about 3 battery charges. I had 7 batteries with me to ensure that I never got into trouble, especally because, before the trip, I was not sure that I would have power every night. Going clockwise, next is my (I think: King-sized) bed with head raised to minimize stomach acid reflux. The curtained area at the back contains a sink at left, a shower in the center, and a toilet at right. To take a warm shower, it was necessary to request hot water about 1/2 hour in advance; this was then brough to a local tank that fed the shower. Farther to the right is a rack for hanging clothes; it was never this neat again, as the week progressed. During my first night, it was dangerously cold for me, with temperatures as low as ~ 54 degrees F. With my heating pads, I survived ... but this was risky. The camp staff were wonderfully helpful, and by the time this picture was taken, I had a small globular gas heater that burned all night and kept me essentially in my comfort zone. It is just next to the low table. Finally, farther to the right are my two suitcases. The floor is a canvas cover on the ground; it proved to be entirely adequate. During the nights, we often heard lions "coughing", sometimes very close, plausibly even within the small copse of trees that constituted our camp.
The daily routine was to get up at 4:45 AM and be escorted to breakfast by a spear-armed masai warrior at 5:30 AM. After breakfast, we headed out around 6 AM and toured -- on gravel roads, deeply rutted tracks, and when necessary, cross-country -- until lunch time. Camp "breakfast" was little more than coffee, so we had an early morning stop somewhere for a more detailed field breakfast. Lunch was back in camp, at an airy table under the trees. We then had a 1-2-hour "siesta" during which it was essentially always too hot to stand our tents. Some people slept on their tent's floor. I usually relaxed in a lounge tent with comfortable couches. Surprisingly, we had pretty good internet, and so I had lots of time to stay in good contact with Mary, back home in Austin. In mid-afternoon, we then headed out to tour again, once mid-day high temperatures had dropped. Usually, we came back to camp for a dinner in the dining tent; on several days, we had an evening stop on a hill to immerse ourselves in the immensity of the Masai Mara and enjoy a spectacularly scenic sunset. Service at the camp was always superb. The staff were the nicest and most eagerly helpful people that I have met in any of the 63 countries that I have visited. And it must be said: The food at the camp was the best that we had in the whole trip -- much better, e. g., than at the supposedly luxurious Hotel Ole Sereni in Nairobi.
Staying at this tent camp was a last-minute, hurried solution to a problem raised when our pre-planned and long-ago-booked lodge ran into legal trouble and could not accept guests. Lodges in Kenya are typically booked 2 years in advance, so no "backup" lodge accommodation was remotely feasible. VENT had to resort to emergency measures to find a tent camp company that could set up a tent camp where there was NOTHING just a few days before. This was done marvellously well. The camp functioned smoothly, with superb service. In fact, we were much closer to nature as a result. On August 13, we spent the morning birding in the forest around the camp; this was one of the most productive days of the trip. So as it turns out,VENT was surely thrown into an unpleasant panic, but we birders were lucky that we ended up in a tent camp, not at Keekorok Lodge.
This is another ~200-degree panorama of my tent, looking more lived-in on August 15, our 6th and last day at Masai Mara. From left to right: two camera batteries are charging; the bed is set up for sleeping but also has a backpack thrown on it; the bathroom area is now open with sink visible at left, shower still curtained, and toilet area at right; the clothes rack is now well in use; the low table at right has my camera and orange lighter for the black gas heater in front of the table; and the suitcase table prominently features bottles of drinking water. We had to drink A LOT of water in the hot, dry climate of the Mara.
Panorama of the commons area of the camp. Our vehicle was generally parked out of sight at left, and other people's tents are out of sight even more to the left. Our lunch table (with blue cover) was generally moved a bit forward toward the photographer. The main tent is the breakfast and dinner tent; I went to all the breakfast snacks but skipped dinner and went to bed early on every evening except the last one. With a generous field breakfast and a full and excellent lunch, getting a bit more sleep was a lot more important to me than a third substantial meal. At right in the distance is the lounge tent where I spent afternoon siestas. All very comfortable. All very well managed.
This morning after 5:30 AM coffee, we cruised the Mara, heading first for the Serval cat and kittens that we glimpsed yesterday. As on almost all days, we were told and I know essentially nothing about the directions that we traveled or any special sites or landmarks that were our target. When I know something, this web site will say so. Often, we exploited hints when clusters of vehicles localized big game ... but big cats were not our main targets, so this happened only a few times per day. It is a big advantage to be birders: We were alone most of the time, enjoying the freedom of a vast grassland plain with no sign of humans -- no fences, no buildings, and only occasional vehicles off in the distance. I also record here but not in following days our field breakfast, which we enjoyed after the first few hours of touring.
Yellow-throated sandgrouse (This is my life bird, not super well seen.)
Pied kingfisher in early-morning sunlight, color-corrected as well as possible (Looks like his last encounter was not with a fish. A rival, perhaps? Or just preening.)
Serval Cat and Kittens
Last night, we had the extraordinary good luck to see an adult Serval cat with playful kittens. This morning, we went back for better looks.
Serval cat with sandgrouse prey
Serval kitten
Adult serval mother of the kittens (They were at just the stage when they already ate meat but still sucked milk. We saw them do both.)
End of Serval Cat Interlude
Secretary bird -- again did not come close
Ruppell's starling (This is my life bird.)
Banded martin (This is my life bird. The white mark above the eye shows well, but at this angle, it is hard to see the dark band across the upper chest.)
Yellow-spotted bush sparrow (This is my life bird.)
At 9 AM, we had a satisfyingly rich field breakfast. Prescription for the Mara: Find a hill top with decorative tree and grass that is so short and bushless that you can confidenly see that no lion, leopard, cheetah, buffalo, elephant, or anything else that's dangerous lurks nearby. This gives you a wonderfully visceral feel for the vastness of the Mara and the special delight in seeing no signs of humanity -- no fences, no buildings, and normally no other vehicles. Then break out the food, which was always plentiful enough and varied enough to satisfy. Scroll right to see this 180-degree panorama.
Birding essentially always starts early, often still in the dark, usually before hotels serve breakfast. Also, a full morning is long -- it lasts until the day gets so hot that sightings are not cost-effective. For these reasons among others, a mid-morning break for a field breakfast is common and welcome during birding trips. Here is one from a 2018 trip to India. In Kenya, what was missing and would have been appreciated -- at least by me -- was chairs.
Startling splash of color: Ammocharis lily (Ammocharis coranica), seen several times
Lilac-breasted roller
Yellow-billed oxpecker in a zebra field
Rosy-throated longclaw (This juvenile male is my life bird -- second-last new bird of the morning of August 11th.)
Stout cisticola (This is my life bird. We saw and I photographed it again on August 12th.)
Hildebrandt's starling (gorgeous last life bird of the morning of August 11th)
August 12: Masai Mara National Reserve
Stout cisticola (This is the best view of a bird that we saw essentially every day at the Mara. Note again that the bird has fluffed up its back feathers, like the bird did that we saw -- but that I did not take as new -- on August 8th in Nairobi National Park. I don't know why they do this, but it increases the probability that that really was Stout cisticola, too ... as "called" by our guides.)
Sunset on the Masai Mara, August 12, 2026
August 13: Masai Mara National Reserve
Today, we stayed in camp and birded the scrub forest around our sleeping and dining tents. This was actually very productive and contributed to our feeling that we were lucky to have been accommodated in an emergency (but very well run!) tent camp instead of in a formal lodge.
Schalow's turaco was -- for me -- the most gorgeous bird that we saw during the trip. And we saw it from within our tent camp in the Mara. This is my life bird.
Lions were a constant presence in the Mara. We needed to be escorted by an armed Masai warrior between our tents and the dining area at night, because lions could wander into camp. This movie shows one of the dominant males in the region proclaiming that this is his territory: "Stay away!"
There were three dominant male "brothers" (allied, whether or not they were siblings) in the area. This movie shows one of them walking almost straight toward our safari vehicle. Seconds after the end of the movie, he passed within a meter in front of us. Predators are very used to safari vehicles. This one ignored us completely. We do however understand why nobody is allowed to get out of a vehicle without a careful check that no predators are nearby: As soon as we alight, we look like food.
Black-backed cisticola (This is my life bird.)
August 15: Masai Mara National Reserve
Fan-tailed grassbird (Catriscus brevirostris) Formerly Broad-tailed warbler; this is my life bird.
Pectoral-patch cisticola (This -- presumably female -- is my life bird. It was difficult to get this bird: it was not common; it was elusive, tiny, and hard to see, and it was hard to persuade our guides to focus on this species.)
This was our last sunset at Masai Mara National Reserve. It was superb to spend 6 days here, immersed in the immensity of east Africa, surrounded by vast herds of wildlife, with no fences, no buildings, nothing to constrain the magical freedom of the wild. Spiced with the the realization that lions -- we thought we heard them -- could wander through our tent camp in the night. The emergency replacement of our original lodge with a bush camp was, in the end, a blessing. We lived so much closer to nature. And we were superbly taken care of by the nicest and most helpful staff -- whether armed with a cold beer or a protective spear -- that I have had the pleasure of meeting anywhere in the world.
August 16 - 17: Lake Baringo
August 18 - 19: Aberdare National Park
Hartlaub's turaco (This is my life bird. Two birds flew by when I was barely ready for them: these were my only looks.)
Spectacled weaver (This is my life bird.)
African hill babbler (Despite the name, this is a warbler, Sylvia abyssinica. It is typical of my tiny life birds seen only briefly and far away.)
Moustached tinkerbird (This is my life bird.)
Black sawwing -- a mostly black swallow with long forked tail. I mostly get such birds only if the tour gives me time to photograph them. This bird was not new -- I'd seen it in South Africa. Not surprisingly, I did not remember that when I saw it here, two decades later.
Silvery-cheeked hornbill (This is my life bird.)
August 20 - 22: Samburu: Buffalo Springs and Shaba National Reserves
Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse (This is my life bird. I have never seen a sandgrouse that was not beautiful, but this one has a special reason to be my top "trip bird". Many bird species have been introduced to Hawaii for various reasons -- in this case for hunters. Most are well establishd and "ebird countable". But this is the principal such bird that I never managed to see in Hawaii -- not in the 1990s, when we lived there, and not since then, when we have gone back for visits. So this has been a "nemesis bird" for me for 30 years. It was therefore a special pleasure to see it ... and to see it here, in Kenya, where it is native.)
August 23: Drive Back to Nairobi
Our bird pictures from around the world follow standard ecozones approximately but not exactly:
Birds from the USA and Canada: our house, Hornsby Bend and greater Austin, Texas, California, Hawaii, Canada,
Neotropic birds from Central America and the Caribbean: Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago
Neotropic birds from South America: Ecuador, Ecuador 2017, Brazil.
Western palearctic birds: Europe: Germany, Finland, Norway, Europe: United Kingdom, Europe: Spain, the Canary Islands, Europe: Lesbos, Greece, Israel
Eastern palearctic birds: China
Birds from Africa: The Gambia, South Africa
Indo-Malayan birds from India: North-west (Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand) India: North-east (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya) India: Central (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh)
Birds from Australia, New Zealand.
For our 2014 December trip to India, see this travelog.
For our 2016 May-June trip to India, see this travelog.
For our 2017 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.
For our 2018 March trip to India, see this travelog.
For our 2018 May trip to China, see this travelog.
For our 2018 October trip from Munich to Budapest, Hungary see this travelog.
For our 2018 November trip to China, see this travelog.
For our 2019 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.
For our 2019 July trip to China, see this travelog.
For our 2021 April trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.
For the 2021 August 3 & 4 migration of Purple martins through Austin, see this web site.
For our 2021 December trip to Ecuador, see this web site.
For our 2022 January-February trip to Peru, see this web site.
For our 2022 July/August trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea, see this web site.
For our 2022 September trip to Bolivia, see this web site.
For our 2022 November-December pre-trip to Argentina (before our Antarctic cruise), see this web site.
For our 2022 November-December cruise to Antarctica, see this web site.
For our 2023 January birding in Chile, see this web site.
For our 2023 January-March cruise from Chile to Antarctica and around South America to Miami, FL, see this web site.
For our 2023 March-April birding in south Florida (after the Seabourn cruise), see this web site.
For our 2023 November-December birding to Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands, and South India, see this web site.
For John's 2024 February-March birding in Colombia, see this web site.
For our 2024 May-June cruise from Iceland to Jan Mayen Island to and around the Svalbard Archipelago, see this web site.
For our 2024 June 25-30 stay in Paris, see this web site.
For our 2025 April 21 - May 3 trip to High Island, Texas, see this web site.
For our 2025 July vacation and birding in Singapore, see this web site.
For our 2025 August birding in north-west Australia, see this web site.
For our 2025 August-October Seabourn cruise from Australia to Chile, see this web site.
For our 2026 January-February trip to New Zealand and 3rd cruise to Antarctica, see this web site.
For my 2026 March-April trip to Borneo and Singapore, see this web site.
For my 2026 August trip to Kenya, see the present web site.